'Angry Black White Boy': The Way I Am

By NATHANIEL RICH

Title:  Angry Black White Boy : A Novel
Author:  ADAM MANSBACH

Macon Detornay hates the Beastie Boys, loves hot sauce and is highly skeptical of John Brown's motives at Harpers Ferry -- all of which leads him to conclude that he is the ultimate ''down whiteboy.'' A graduate of Newton South High School, Macon has grown up as a Jewish kid on the leafy streets of the Boston suburbs, where he has witnessed liberal white hypocrisy first hand. ''Even the most concerned white people,'' he observes, ''have always been able to back away from race . . . when the truth is too ugly or complicated.''

Macon first becomes aware of these ugly truths on the day of the Los Angeles riots following the acquittal of the officers charged in the assault on Rodney King. The pre-adolescent Macon, enraged by the verdict, storms out of his house determined to ''make his contribution to the struggle by providing whiteness for the stomping.'' But since there aren't any black people within miles who might consent to stomp on him, he tries instead to start his own riot. He goes to a sleepy commercial district and throws a flaming trash can through the windshield of a parked police car. He watches while the car burns to ash, but no one ever shows up. The consequent sense of futility haunts him throughout ''Angry Black White Boy,'' Adam Mansbach's second novel. Macon's attacks on the hypocrisies of white guilt notwithstanding, he is the guiltiest white person of them all. His inability to atone for the sins of his race only makes him more wretched.